The Legend of Zelda: The Shards of Power
by kajemi2
Summary: When Hyrule goes to war, a young boy named Link is swept up into the conflict, and forced to leave his old life behind. On his journey to save Hyrule from a force far greater than it seems, he'll meet unlikely friends, and unstoppable foes.
1. Prologue

With the winds blowing in the air, the field's grass gently swayed to one side, creating the appearance of a wave on land. The fog in the air was dense, thicker than most other fogs. If most fogs are thick as pea soup, this one was about as see-through as the bowl containing the soup. Were I to walk up to you, and wave from five feet away, you wouldn't have the slightest clue I was there. This, along with the eerie, blood-red hue of the sky, made trudging along this field particularly difficult, especially for one who doesn't like dead bodies. Right, I almost forgot to mention those. They were littered all throughout the ground, and other than a bit of sky here and there, and then the occasional sight of grass underneath all the blood, you couldn't see anything but these lifeless husks. Some had visible wounds, while others just seemed to be lying there. Every once in a while, one would jolt suddenly, or give off a quick blink, but the overall gist of it is that there's a creepy field with dead guys scattered around on it.

The field was extremely large, were you to stand on one end of it, there's no way you could see the other, even if there wasn't the goddamn fog. My bare feet, numb from the ridiculously cold air, were completely soaked in the blood of my former friends and comrades. Of course, it's not like I knew most of them personally. Each of them was at least ten years older than I. But I had lived in the same town, breathed the same air, and fought the same battle. The only difference was that they were all dead, and I was alive. I think the enemy was completely dead too. There were no sounds, other than the quiet thump of my feet. My long, pointed ears, usually able to detect the smallest of sounds, heard nothing in this hell-esque place.

I approached a small hill, and looked up to its top. At least, where the top would be if I could see that far. The fog was finally clearing, and I hoped that once it left, it would reveal some friends of mine that had somehow survived as well. It didn't quite clear all the way, however. Now, if I was standing five feet from you, you could see me, but if I were more than a few yards away, I'd still be invisible. As I was looking ahead of me and not down, I tripped on a body. "Gah!" I cried out as I landed on a corpse. My eyes looked into his, and they were frozen and lifeless. "Eww eww eww eww ewwww!" I pushed myself off and stumbled backwards, attempting to brush the blood off my gray shirt. All that did was get it all over my hands. With a sigh, I just kept walking. I don't know what I was walking towards, but I think anywhere else was better than there, so it was likely a smart choice to go on.

Upon reaching the hill's top, I could look around and see a little more clearly. The fog was now almost entirely gone, and for the first time in hours, I could see where I was. I could also see that I wasn't alone. Enemy soldiers, at least 30 of them, were grouped on the other side of the hill. At least I thought they were enemies. I couldn't tell by their uniforms, they were too damaged and bloody. They were saying… something. My ears weren't doing the best they could've that day, but they clearly thought that they had won the battle. They were hugging eachother, some of them crying. I really think they should have just been happy to be alive, after all, 5,000 soldiers (both sides included) had gone in, and only they had come out. I thought about what might happen if I approached them. Would they cut me down and kill me, or would they show sympathy because I was just a small little kid? I decided to risk , I walked down the hill, very cautious. I didn't want to startle them, because then they would attack without thinking. Once I was about fifteen feet from them, I called out.

"Hey," I said. They all turned around at the same exact moment, some of them raising their weapons. One of them said back, "Are you a Hylian, or one of… them?" The "them" he was referring too, was the enemy army, the Zerukans. Zeruka was a peaceful country, bordering the South of Hyrule. They usually didn't bother us, as our army was fiercer than any other, or so it seemed. Then, the Twilight Calamity proved that our soldiers were full of weak and cowardly people, and only due to the actions of The Hero of the Goddesses did Hyrule ever make it out in one piece. Since then, Zeruka became more hostile and cocky, until they declared we give them an absurd amount of resources, or go to war. We chose war. Not the brightest idea we've ever had.

I sighed with relief. "I'm a Hylian," I answered. "My family lived in Tuskuki village down South. "Are you alright?" the soldier asked me. I shook my head no. Only then did I realize my entire life was wiped out in just the two days the battle lasted. The tears came, like two torrential waterfalls. Then, for the first time since i was a little baby, I started to cry. The soldier approached me, and hugged me. I didn't recognize him, but he let me cry into his stomach, so I assumed he was a nice guy. "There, there," he spoke softly, like my father. "It's okay, you're safe now."


	2. Chapter 1

A bright blue sky, not a cloud in sight, and a warm, pleasant feeling from the sun. I looked out onto Hyrule Field, and that's what I saw. A pristine meadow, the bright green grass, the shining clear water, and the yellow path laid out in front of me. I had been staying at Kakariko Village for quite awhile. About 11 years, actually. I was now 16, and ready to become a knight of Hyrule. The war against Zeruka had ended around 5 years ago, with Hyrule winning, but barely. We had more dead people than we knew what to do with, so the graveyard business really got big.

Dampè, the gravekeeper of Kakariko Village and that soldier who I had met on the day of the battle, took me in and let me live with him. He became quite rich, and taught me a lot about gravedigging. It stinks that it's a fairly depressing job, really. You meet a lot of new people, but you hear about their deceased loved ones, and how they were such good people. Dampè always told me that he'd learned long ago not to grieve for the dead, just to celebrate the living. I don't know how he thought that, though. It seems like a lot of really good people are dead.

Anyways, I was going down Hyrule Field because I had finally signed up to become a knight. I turned in my application a couple of weeks before, and they gladly accepted it. Now I was supposed to walk a couple miles from Kakariko to Hyrule Castle Town. My long green hat swayed in the wind, and I was worried about it falling off. Lots of people ask me why I wear such a ridiculous looking hat, but the reason is that it's the only thing I have left from my real family; my dad always wore it. So it kind of reminds me of him.

The sun was actually starting to get pretty hot, and a sweat was starting to appear on my forehead. I wanted to wipe it away, but my hands were full: a bag in the right arm, a sword and shield under the left arm. The bag mostly had clothes, some paper, quills, and food in it. The sword and shield were there because the academy didn't give you them, you had to bring your own. I was really excited, with the chance to meet new friends (and enemies, but I didn't care about that at the time) and learn how to fight. My father had taught me a thing or two, but other than that I had no idea how to use a sword.

As if to be a bad omen of sorts, as soon as I set foot across the great drawbridge of Castle Town and entered to cobblestone floored city, a little bird flew right over my head, and took a shit on me. Right on the head. My brownish blonde hair now had an ugly white mixed in, and my first instinct was to track down the bird and beat it to death with its own children. But I calmed down and just pulled my hat over the stain. "I'll clean it up once I get settled," I thought to myself. Boy, the town was a big change of venue from the quiet village of Kakariko. There were people everywhere, and nobody stopped to say "Hi" to anyone else. I tried to greet the first couple people who walked past me, but they just looked at me funny, then kept going. "Honestly," I thought, "Has anyone here ever heard of manners?"

It took me awhile to figure out where the castle was. All of the buildings were so big, they very well could have been castles. I think the only real difference is that castles have towers, throne rooms, and royalty living in them. They're also white, not brownish or gray or whatever color the houses were, just a shining bright white. A knight stopped me on my way through the entrance to the garden out front. "Halt!" he said. "What is your business with the royal family?" I replied, "Oh, I signed up for the knight academy, I have my paper right here." I dug through the bag until I found the sheet that would grant me permittance into the castle. "So," the guard said. "Your name is Link Haliflax?" he asked me. I cheerfully responded, "Yup, so can I go in?"

He gave me a weird kind of glare. "Yes, I suppose you can enter," he mumbled. "Open the gate!" he called out. Just like that, the big fence gate in front of me opened up wide. "Once you enter the castle," the guard instructed me, "Go left, then right, then right, then down the big hall to your left. You'll reach the throne room, where the academy is meeting. Don't wander." And with that, I skipped across the large garden that lay outside the towering castle. It was quite beautiful, actually. A big fountain in the middle, with all the kinds of flowers you could possibly imagine, laid cleverly around in different patches of grass. I made sure just to go on the brown dirt path, and not to tread on the pretty blossoms. After showing the admittance paper to another grumpy guard, I finally entered Hyrule Castle.

It was humongous inside. There were at least five chandeliers on the ceiling, with the biggest one being in the very center of the room's ceiling. Three staircases, each going in a different direction, lay out in front of me. One went forward, one went left, and one went (you guessed it) to the right. Each step was a thick marble block, shining brightly, and so clean that if you looked straight into one, you'd see your own reflection. "Left, right, right, left," I repeated to myself quietly, trying not to drool in awe of this massive room. Some people looked at me funny, and I saw a couple start to whisper and point, but I really didn't care. I was too happy to worry about anything else.

I went up the left staircase, which led to a balcony. I turned right, allowing me to look down on the entrance to the castle. Now I see the the floor had a pattern with three golden triangles forming their own big triangle. It was called the Trifecta or something, I didn't remember. Turning right again, I found myself one floor above where the forward-leading staircase had gone. Now a left led me down a great hall, with many marvelous paintings. Most of them appeared to be very old, maybe hundreds of years old, in fact. The stained glass windows let in lights of all sorts of colors, the lights resting on a red carpeted floor, giving off the illusion that the whole room lit up with rainbows. Too preoccupied with the beautiful scenery, I bumped into the door at the end, surprising me enough to knock me on my butt. Some of the stuff in my bag fell out, tumbling around. With a frustrated sigh, I picked them all up and opened the door to the throne room.

The red carpet stretched out down the huge room all the way to the titular throne. Nobody was sitting in it, though. The marble floor reflected the lights that shone through the windows, and four massive pillars of quartz, two on each side, held up the ceiling, which was lined with a golden trimming. There was a group of people in the middle of the room, each of them around my age. I figured that was the knight academy group, so I walked on over to them. Everyone kept on talking, and didn't pay much attention to me. There was one taller guy, though, he appeared to be several years older than everyone else, and walked up to me. Pulling out what looked like a checklist of names, he asked "Name?" I replied "Link Haliflax," and showed him my form. He took it, reviewed it for a couple of seconds, checked off something on his sheet, then said "You're late."

"Um," I tried to come up with an excuse. "The castle was hard to find…" He scoffed, "The castle, the massive building that is taller than any other in this country, was hard to find?" A little embarrassed, my face began to turn a bright red, and I looked down at my feet. "I'm sorry," I apologized. With a roll of his eyes, he answered, "Just don't let it happen again. Take off your hat while you're inside." And then he walked away. I really didn't want to take off the hat. Then everyone would see the poop-stain, and nobody'd ever let me hear the end of it. I reluctantly pulled it off, cause I didn't want him to yell at me, but tried to wipe off the stain as hard as I could with my sleeve. It didn't work. "Is that bird crap?" someone asked me. "Uh…" I felt very awkward as everyone turned to look at me. One of them approached me, took a sniff, then stepped back quickly. "Eww that is disgusting, man," he said.

"Everyone, line up!" called out the the taller guy. We all scrambled to line up, one guy even tripped and faceplanted, which I'll admit, was pretty funny. I ended up all the way on the far right of the line, which didn't really surprise me. Suddenly, a big door on the far left corner, away from where everyone was standing, swung open. Two people walked in. One of them was a very tough looking man, who had clearly seen his share of battles. He had scars on his face, arms, you name it. He had short cut grayish brown hair, and his eyes were hardened and seemed emotionless. The other person, however, was a younger girl, mabe y age, possibly older or younger. She had on a big white dress, with several emblems of Hyrule on it. Her hair was long, and a golden yellow, much more so than any other shade of yellow I'd seen. The crown on her head pretty much gave it away that this was no other than Hyrule's "beloved" Princess Zelda.

"At ease, all of you," the tougher looking man says. "My name is not important to you. You will refer to me only as Captain. Do you all understand?" At exactly the same time, we all said "Sir yes sir!" It felt kind of weird, I'll admit. "Now then," Captain said as he walked along the line, examining the recruits. "Each of you has been selected because you show promise." Then he stopped and looked at me. With a slightly puzzled look, he continued, "Some more than others." The person to my left looked at me with a smirk. "Oh shut up," I whispered to him. I couldn't help but notice that Princess Zelda was staring at me. Was she checking me out? Did she think I was handsome? The illusion was shattered when I realized her eyes were looking slightly above mine, to a certain white and black mark on my head. She began to walk over to me, and I started to panic. It was too late for an escape though, as after a couple of seconds, Zelda was standing right in front of me. "Is that…" she sounded bewildered. Did she think it was some special mark? "Bird crap?"

"Uh," I didn't really know how to address royalty, but I went with what I thought was an appropriate answer: "Yup." At this, she looked a little confused, but then she started to giggle. And then she started laughing, louder and louder. Everyone's head turned to watch Zelda as her eyes watered due to her massive laughter. I'm not exaggerating when I say she was rolling on the floor laughing after a couple of seconds. Captain ran over, grabbed me by my collar, and hoisted me two feet in the air. "Hey!" I shouted. "What's the big idea!?" But he looked mad. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER GRACE?" his voice would have trembled a mountain, let alone a sixteen year old boy. "I.. I didn't…. I mean… uh," Quite literally at a loss for words, and really not wanting to make him more mad, I stayed silent. I'm pretty sure he was about to slam me on the ground, but Zelda stood up, and told him "Oh please, Captain. I was simply laughing at his jest. He did me no harm, he just gave me a quick laugh."

That wasn't really what I would've called a "quick laugh", but that seemed to calm him down. He set me on my feet, and gave me a menacing glare. If looks could kill, I'd have been triple dead. "Right then," he says to everyone. "Let's get started with your training."


	3. Chapter 2

There was always one thing in my life I could never find the answer to: the point of it. What reason was there that I existed? Wouldn't the world be the same, or even better off without me? I just wished there was some way to see a positive result of my life. Cause to me, it seemed I was just another mouth to feed, another person to care for, another pawn to be played. Never once could I think of a way I benefited anybody, except for small things, like picking up someone's dropped item, or holding a door open for them. I sure seem like a glass-half full kinda guy, huh? Well anyways, enough about me. I should get back to the story.

The dark room was filled only with silence as I lay there, trying my best to get some sleep. I glanced over at the clock on the wall, to see that it was already past midnight. "Ugh," I thought. "Why can't I just get to sleep already?" I knew the answer to that, but I didn't want to think of it. The answer to my previous question, was that for as long as I could remember, I'd have nightmares worse than anything imaginable. The troubling part was, I had no idea what they were even about: I'd just wake up screaming, in a cold sweat, and horrified at… something. Sometimes I'd wake up screaming a name I'd never even heard before. For example, the previous night I awoke while shouting "GANONDORF!" at the top of my lungs. That dream had been particularly rattling for me (though I had no idea what it was about), but I also woke up half the other people in the dorm.

I had been in the academy for about a month at this point, and was doing pretty well. They put me into dorm room D, and the letter was what your expected grade average was. A little mean, if you ask me, but it motivated people to work harder, because A's dorm room was way nicer than F, the lowest grade's dorm room.I was on a top bunk in the middle of the room, against the wall that would be to your left should you enter. The person the on bottom bunk of the beds was a guy named Mido. He was actually quite a jerk, and kicks upwards in his sleep. What a funny coincidence, don't you think? He had orange hair, his head looked like a triangle, and was just overall mean. He'd walk up to people for no apparent reason and just make fun of them, and when they get pissed off at him, he'd say "What's wrong huh? You wanna fight, or are ya too chicken? Bawk Bawk!" He did that to me a couple times before, but I never hit him, I'd just get up and go somewhere else. He also had this gang of lackeys, who would say stuff like "Heh, yeah, you is dumb!" or "We gon' beat you up!" to his victims.

After what seemed like hours of waiting, I finally drifted off into an unwanted but needed dream I actually did remember. There was fire, fire all around. The flames leapt up into the sky and danced around in unknown patterns, their red and gold colors as menacing as they ever could be. The sky, on the other hand, was a calm black, with brilliant stars that made all sorts of mystical constellations. But the fire took priority in that situation. "Whoa! Hot!" I jumped back as the flames tried to engulf me. I was surrounded by them, the burning bastards making a full circle that covered every direction possible. Funny thing is though, there was just that one ring around me. There were no houses on fire, even though the houses that appeared before me were made of a dark, dry, oak wood. The ground within that ring of fire was a charred black, and there appeared to be… black skulls lying about?

People were running and panicking outside of the ring. They were either running away from me, or they were running away from the fire, but I couldn't tell. A man approached me from outside of the fire, wielding a big, long broadsword. I turned to look at him. But I didn't turn. At least, I didn't command my body to. It seemed to have taken a mind of its own, and it was making me laugh hysterically. "I'll kill you!" the man shouted at me. "I'll kill you, you monster!" Not in control of my own body, I said to him "Just go ahead and try!" With a battle cry, he lunged at me, over the flames and aiming directly for my face with the sharp tip of his sword. I grabbed it from his hands, and shoved him to the ground. "How did I do that!?" I thought to myself. The "dream me" appeared to be extremely strong, and, quite frankly, ruthless. I held the sword up above the man.

"No! Wait, please!" he pleaded. But my body was apparently beyond reasoning. To my horror, I brought the sword down right into the man's left eye. "EEEYAAAGGH!" he screamed. I twisted the sword, distorting his face even further. His blood splattered all over me, and I wanted to vomit. But all I did was grin, and laugh. "HEHEH!" I cackled. "WHO'S KILLING WHO NOW?" I proceeded to lift the sword out of the corpse of the man, jump over the fire, and onto someone else. I did the same thing to them that I did to the man. I wanted to close my eyes, but they were fixed open, unblinking. The next victim was just a little boy, no older than six. "No!" I screamed in my head. "Stop, please!" The sword plummeted down towards the kid's eye. Then I awoke.

"STOP IT!" I cried out as I jumped up from my pillow. My breathing slowed as I realized it was all just a dream. "Quiet down, Birdcrap!" someone yelled at me. "We're trying to sleep!" Ah yeah, ever since the bird pooping on my head incident, my official name around there had been "Birdcrap". It was annoying at first, but I grew accustomed to it. I at least had it better than this one kid, who had adapted the name "Bucktoothed-pants-wetter", (Don't think I need to explain that one) or Buckpants for short. I think his real name was Joses or something like that, but even I called him Buckpants. Then again, he always called me Birdcrap, so we were about even. In a cold sweat, I sat up and checked the clock. It said the time was around 7:45, so I had gotten a decent amount of sleep. "Getting to sleep tonight is gonna be real hard…" I thought to myself.

Since I had a good 45 minutes or so till we were supposed to get up, I pulled out a book from my bag, which lay at the foot of my bed. "How To Like Your Like Like: A Training Guide For Difficult Pets" read the cover. I don't know why I took the book from home, I didn't have any pets anyways. But I think it made me feel more like a normal person, like someone who did have a pet dog or a cat and lived at home with their family. The book told me how to soothe distressed pets, how to feed them meds they didn't want to take, even how to teach them tricks. Before i knew it, Captain walked in and announced "All right! Up and at 'em! Anyone who is not at the training grounds in five minutes will be expelled!" Everyone who was sleeping, or trying to, shot up instantly. "Sir yes sir!" We all called out to him. He trudged out, with a contempt look on his face.

I quickly took off my pajamas and put on the uniform. It was a brown shirt with tan pants, the shirt had on the royal family's emblem: the Triwhatever with a red bird underneath it, and a bunch of other decorations. It was made of cloth, and quite thin. I was pretty sure that the real soldiers wore much more durable uniforms, with chainmail and armour. My floppy green hat stood out from the uniforms, them being brownish and all new, while my hat, with its yellow trimming around where it rested on my head, and bright green cone shape that flopped down to as far as my waist, was patched up, dirty, and really old. I think it was even older than me, actually, though I don't know by how much. I wore it anyways, cause it always reminded me of home. I jumped off my bunk, and ran out of the dorm room, through a giant hall filled with paintings, and outside to the courtyard. Sometimes, Zelda would be standing at the far end of the flower filled courtyard, praying, or looking up at the sky. Several times I caught her peeking at our training session, and she would be holding a stick, trying to copy the moves we were learning.

I didn't think she'd be into that kind of stuff, but apparently she was, as Zelda did it quite often. She wasn't there that day though, she was most likely still sleeping, or just doing something else. I took a right through a grand marble archway, which led me to the training grounds. They were really big, most of the grounds being covered up by grass, but some of it was just dirt, where the sparring took place. i was actually really good at sparring, somehow never getting hit once. I even defeated several people from Dorm A, the highest performing group. They always came up with some pathetic excuse for why they lost, like "Oh, I was going easy on you" or "Pfft, you totally cheated", you know the drill. I just could never impress Captain, our sole teacher. He always expected way more out of me than anyone else. If I'd get a bulls-eye at the archery range he'd tell me to do it faster. And every time I won a spar, he would just tell me it was luck, and that I'd run out of it soon. It really irked me to see people do way worse than me, then get praised because they were "trying their best". I was trying my best, he just didn't see it.

After everyone gathered, which only took three and a half minutes, Captain began on that day's lesson. "Alright everyone," he announced, "today we are going to do something new: magic." Some people began to murmur, and I saw a couple of worried faces. "Now now," Captain continued, "It isn't as daunting as it seems." It was as daunting as it seemed. Some people were able to summon up a little bit of fire, or electricity, and one guy even got some ice flying from his hands, but no matter what, I couldn't conjure up even the simplest thing. Captain grew frustrated with me as the class went on. "Come on Link!" he lectured. "Are you really just going to keep failing, or are you going to start doing!?" "I… I'm trying!" I stammered. "I just can't seem to-" Can't seem to what?" he interrupted me. "Pull off the simplest spell in the book? You'll be worthless on the battlefield, swords and bows can only get you so far!"

"How bout swords, bows, boomerangs and bombs?" I asked him with a mischievous look on my face. Captain glared at me. "How in the name of Hyrule would one person carry all that stuff?" He asked. "Oh wait, I know. MAGIC." He smacked me in the face, pretty hard too. Then he walked away to go praise someone else. "Hmmf," I thought. "I'll show him someday." And with that, I went over to the archery range, picked up a practice bow, took aim, and landed a bulls-eye right in the red and white target's central circle. I looked behind me, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Princess Zelda watching me in awe. Once she realized I saw her, she quickly looked away at someone else. I smiled. "If I'm so worthless," i thought, "then how come I can impress even a member of the royal family?"


End file.
